


Parent or Guardian

by Badwolf36



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e13 Anchors, Gen, Introspection, Post-Episode: s03e13 Anchors, Stilinski Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 19:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1196787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Badwolf36/pseuds/Badwolf36
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The same thoughts keep running through his head, over and over. <i> You can't protect him. You can’t make this better. You will never make him feel safe again.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Parent or Guardian

**Title:** Parent or Guardian

 **Fandom:** Teen Wolf

 **Rating:** PG

 **Characters:** Sheriff Stilinski

 **Word count:** 1,054

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Teen Wolf or any related properties.

 **Warnings:** Coda to "Anchors." Slight spoilers for "Riddled." Angst and introspection.

 **Summary:** The same thoughts keep running through his head, over and over. _You can't protect him. You can’t make this better. You will never make him feel safe again._

 

_You can’t protect him._

It’s the thought that keeps running through his head as he sits up in bed at night, eyes on a case file he’s not really reading. He sits and he waits for the whimpering or the screaming (he can’t decide which is worse) from the other bedroom to start. It always starts.

_He shouldn’t have had to protect you._

He’d been stabbed, beaten and tied up, the latter fates which he shared with Melissa McCall and Chris Argent. They had struggled and fought and failed to get away from that _thing_ that used to teach their children English.

And their children, their stupid, crazy, beautiful, brave children, had sacrificed everything, including their lives, to save them.

He hadn’t been there to stop them, and that had stabbed at his pride both as the Sheriff and as a parent. His ultimate fear, the fear that he knew Melissa and Chris shared, was that their children would die before them. And they had. His son had _died_ for his sake while he’d been tied up and helpless in some Druidic human sacrifice root cellar.

He was supposed to guard him, protect him against danger and he’d _failed._ He had failed his son.

_You can’t make this better._

It had been a halting explanation from Stiles, something about darkness and the Nemeton, which let him know that it wasn’t over, that it may never be over. And that was to say nothing of the fact that he now knew some things in the dark fought back with teeth and claws, that some criminals had glowing eyes and ripped-up faces.

_He will never stop being afraid. You will never make him feel safe again._

It’s not fair. Stiles is just a high school kid, the same as Scott and Allison and all the rest of them. Just kids. Even Derek Hale is mostly a kid; still the same messed-up kid he’d been after his family died in a fire that shouldn’t have happened.

Stiles should have never had to deal with ritual sacrifices, or crazy lizards, or his mother’s death on his own.

But _he_ hadn’t been there for Stiles.

He had gotten wrapped in work, and ignored his son. So when Stiles had lost him his job after the thing with the Whittemores, he had been livid at first. He’d been furious and angry and then he was just tired and disappointed with Stiles, _in_ Stiles.

He can look at that time objectively now, match up Stiles’ insane actions with the explanations he has for them now, even if it seems crazy still that the “rational” explanation involves werewolves and hunters and a kanima.

He thinks of Stiles, how he’d gone missing the night of the lacrosse championship. He’d been so proud of him that night, and then so afraid for him when he’d disappeared and Jackson Whittemore turned up dead on the field.

Frantic hadn’t begun to cover his behavior, but he’d had a job to do, so he’d done it, all the while scanning the crowd for any sign of a lacrosse jersey with “24” across the front.

And then Stiles had turned up in his own bedroom as he stood there worrying; bruised, bleeding, but alive and in front of him.

And he’d tried to get his son to let him help, tried to convince his son to let him get revenge on the kids (lie, so many lies) that had done this to him. And Stiles had begged him to just let it go. Said he was okay.

Crumpled into him during the hug they shared like the weight of the world was crushing him.

And then there’d been the whirlwind that was Lydia Martin and a heartfelt talk about heroes, and Stiles had called him around 1 in the morning, claiming he was spending the night at Scott’s with too much of a waver in his voice and too much gratefulness when he didn’t question Stiles’ story, instead telling him to get some sleep after such a big night.

_She’d be disappointed in you._

Claudia’s son, her vibrant boy, had started having panic attacks after she died right in front of him. He’d done the best he could, taken Stiles to the recommended child psychologist, monitored his Adderall intake, researched methods to soothe panic attacks. But even with all that, he still felt like a failure when he found his son wedged in the corner of the upstairs bathroom, one small hand fisted in his shirt, the other clutched around one of Claudia’s silver bracelets, and his breath wheezing in and out of his lungs in great whooping gasps.

Claudia’s photo stared down at him from the wall when he climbed into the bottle and didn’t come out for a long time.

_How can you help him when you can’t help yourself?_

McCall is going to get him thrown out of office.

He’s going to lose his job for real this time, and “impeached” is not going to be a resume buzzword that makes him a desirable employment candidate.

That’s why he’s been going through his case files, staring at the words “animal attack” and wondering just how many times the truth in black and white should have read “werewolf attack” or “supernatural assault.”

He’s going to lose his job, and he honestly doesn’t know how he’s going to support Stiles and himself. He has savings, but they’ll run out sooner rather than later.

But he knows what he’s not going to do. He’s not going to give up. He’s not going to give into fear, or the unknown, or Special Agent Rafael McCall.

And he’s not going to let Stiles give in either. His kid is strong, a trait he inherited from both his parents. He’s stubborn (that’s from him), loyal (Claudia), and smart (both of them).

And he’s not going to let his kid give into the hallucinations and delusions caused by a magic tree stump. And though he’s not a superstitious man, he crosses his fingers and prays that the magical tree is really all it is. Because the alternative is that Stiles inherited something else from Claudia, something that will take the rest of his family from him.

So he sits, and waits, and listens. It’s the only thing he can do right now.

 


End file.
